


Life Goes On

by moodyrebelmage



Category: Dragon Age: Inquisition
Genre: Angst, Comfort, F/M, Post-Trespasser, Trespasser - Freeform, seriously if you don't like kid talk skip this one, talk of children, unnamed Inquisitor
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-10-28
Updated: 2015-10-28
Packaged: 2018-04-28 16:50:55
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,422
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5098073
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/moodyrebelmage/pseuds/moodyrebelmage
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>A brief look at an Inquisitor's path to recovery and hope for the future through her husband's eyes.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Life Goes On

It takes him too long to ask her about it.

Naturally, his wife needs time to adjust, to the loss of her arm, to leaving Skyhold, to going underground. During the weeks they spend evacuating the keep, she works herself to exhaustion. Aided by what remains of their friends, he urges her to rest after everything she's been through, but she clings to the distraction and he has to let it go.

By the time she turns in every day, she is either too drained to hold a conversation or he is already sleeping. And he gets it. He doesn't know what it's like to adjust to life without a limb, but he knows what it's like to be shattered, to lose direction and purpose, to have to fight to find yourself again. He also knows what it's like to need time, to turn inward to avoid hurting loved ones. And now he has some idea of what it must have been like for his siblings when he ignored them for all those years.

The outlook improves slightly once they leave Skyhold for good. She's speaking again, about things other than work but still not about their future. Once in a while she smiles.

He finds them a cottage not far from his family. It needs some work, but there's space enough for her to build the garden of her dreams, for the pup to run, and there's extra room inside in case someday they need it. On the day he shows her the cottage, he asks to blindfold her. He's proud of what he's found, and she's having a good day, so she agrees.

Her good day is short-lived.

The garden leaves her quiet. The extra rooms leave her in tears. His arms envelop her as he offers flustered apologies. He doesn't know what he's done wrong, and he still doesn't ask, maybe because he thinks she'll tell him when she's ready, maybe because he's not sure he's ready to hear it.

On the day they move in, things are starting to look better. The pup drops a stick at her feet in the garden, and she tosses it for him and plays tug o' war and laughs. They all walk to the market together to stock up on food for their new kitchen. Neither one of them has any experience with cooking, but Cullen is learning, and she stands at his shoulder, teasing him. It's the most perfect day they've had in months. When they retire that night he takes her face in his hands and tries to kiss her, it's been so long, but she pulls away with fear in her eyes, and he knows he pushed too soon.

She always wears his shirts to bed. It's cute at first, she looks comfortable, until he realizes she's hiding from him. That's when he breaks.

Curled against her in the dark, a sharp ache in his throat, in his heart, he presses a weighty kiss to her temple.

“Please, talk to me.”

She cries with him.

The answer doesn't come that day, she isn't ready, but some relief comes in acknowledging something is wrong.

Before she wakes, he spends his mornings fixing up the room across the hall. Life here is quiet, nice, but slow and duller than he remembers. He thinks he knows why that is. He doesn't know much about construction, but they brought some books with them from Skyhold, and he's figuring it out. Life becomes less quiet, but she never comes to see what he's doing in there.

He's surprised by how well it turns out. His brother helps him paint, and his sister draws bunnies across the walls. They're not sure why he's doing this; they don't know how quiet it's been, how desperately they need something to look forward to, but they're happy to help. 

When it's finished, he tries to show her.

“I can't,” she says.

He touches her arm when she tries to leave and is surprised that it's enough to make her stay.

“Please, talk to me.”

At last, she does.

“What can I offer a child?” she asks. Her voice is strained, aching. They talked about this once, so many, many months before, and there was joy in her eyes, hope. Now there is hurt. “Could I hold him and feed him at the same time? Could I do her hair when I can't even do my own?”

“I'm here. I can help.”

It's the wrong thing to say. The discussion ends and he closes the door behind him. The room is painful for him now, too.

The garden remains untilled, and somehow that hurts, too. Everything she loved is so much harder now, and this plot of land he found for her reminds her of things she thinks she can't do. He tries to pull her out of it, suggests they do it together; their days are so long without a world to save, an army to run. Eventually she agrees.

In the garden, he tries to understand. She tests her limits, not with him but with herself. She overreaches, refuses his help, throws her spade down in frustration. This woman who gave so much to everyone she knew, everyone in the world, treats herself like a burden. He hands the spade back to her and she tries again.

His cooking is getting better. Instead of teasing him, she talks about how next year he will be able to use their own vegetables and herbs, and that's when he knows she's finding her groove. Bad days become bad moods, which become bad moments.

She's still sleeping in his shirts, but sometimes she kisses him.

Her mortar is sitting on the table now. The herbs they grew aren't ready yet, but some grow around the hills, and she spends mornings plucking them and crushing them and creating teas and potions and ointments. Word starts to spread around the nearby town that the Herald of Andraste is an apothecary, and soon people are asking her for help. Cullen fields the inquiries at first so she won't be overwhelmed, but there is joy in feeling useful, and he can see what it means to her.

Now that they've settled, his family comes around often. Mia helps him prepare dinner for everyone, and they all eat in the budding garden. Branson's wife is pregnant again. Cullen's wife no longer avoids her. She teaches her nephew to play fetch with the dog, then shows him the room with the bunnies.

As he lies in bed reading one night, she complains about their sleeping arrangement. She wants to cuddle, to spoon him with her good arm, but she's on the wrong side. They switch sides, and the colors of the world feel a little brighter.

One morning, he spies her doing her own hair. Triumph glows on her face, but she doesn't mention it to him, and that night she asks for his help as always. His fingers linger a little longer in her curls, brushing gently along her scalp. In the reflection of the mirror, her eyes close and she presses into his hands. His whole body aches with missing her. He plants a kiss on her brow.

In the darkness, she wakes him. Her hand snakes around him tensely, greedily, and pulls him back toward her. He can't even remember if he had been sleeping, he is so ready to be present in this moment. She climbs on top of him, her face crashing against his, her kiss desperate and burning. His hands are at her cheeks, in her hair, down her back, tugging at that awful shirt, and she's _letting him_. Not an inch of them goes untouched, unkissed, unmelded, and not a minute before dawn is lost to sleep.

When he does wake up, he does so alone. He wonders for a second if it had been a dream, but he's still fatigued and sweaty. He finds her in the kitchen. She's in one of his shirts again, but she's grinning and trying to cook while the dog sits behind her whimpering for bacon. It feels like the sun rose just for them.

He heats the water for her witherstalk tea. It's been so long since she's had any reason to drink it, but she's been making it for people in town for weeks. When he hands it to her, she sniffs at it, then pours it out the window.

“It would be a shame to waste such a beautiful room.”


End file.
